Below, Dr. Stanton explains why the conventional idea of toleration as "a child of diversity and doubt" needs rethinking, and why we should take the trouble to understand the history of toleration in modern Europe in all its complex detail.

"The textbooks tell us that toleration goes hand in hand with
liberalism and that the appeal of liberalism derives in large part from its
commitment to tolerating diverse ways of life.That commitment, in its turn, is usually thought to proceed in theory,
and to have proceeded in historical fact, from the recognition that there is no
single right way to live, or that all ways of life have something to be said
for them—none is intrinsically better than all the others. Toleration, in other
words, is a child of doubt and diversity, and its triumph is that of virtue
over vice, of reason over superstition (by which is meant nowadays supernatural
religion), and of individual freedom over state coercion.

The English philosopher John Locke has long enjoyed a
starring role in this textbook story: his political philosophy is said to have announced
the birth of liberalism while his Letter
concerning toleration is said to have provided the first liberal
justification of toleration. On this
view, Locke’s Letter shows that
religion is the business of the individual, who possesses the right to go about
that business as he or she chooses. It
follows both that religion is optional and that it ought to be tolerated by the
state. Coercion of the individual by the
state in respect of religion is inappropriate because religious belief is a
wholly private matter. However, there is an alarming inconsistency in Locke’s
position for, having established this much, he denies toleration to Roman Catholics
and atheists: a black mark in Locke’s otherwise unblemished liberal record.

A new study from the Department of Politics radically
revises this textbook story. In Natural
Law and Toleration in the Early Enlightenment, which I edited with my
former colleague Jon Parkin (now St. Hugh’s, Oxford), leading scholars in the
field, including Maria Rosa Antognazza, John Dunn, Knud Haakonssen, and Ian
Hunter, challenge the assumption that toleration was born of doubt and
diversity. They reveal, by contrast, how
some of the most seminal discussions of toleration in the western tradition
were rooted in certitude, not doubt. The book offers significant new
interpretations of a series of classic thinkers, including Samuel Pufendorf,
Christian Thomasius, G. W. Leibniz, Jean Barbeyrac, Francis Hutcheson, and,
above all, Locke. Two essays in particular, that by Ian Harris and my own
contribution ‘Natural law, nonconformity and toleration: two stages on Locke’s
way’, decisively shift the terms in which Locke must be understood. They show that, with Locke, religion was
neither optional nor private, not a matter of right for
the individual primarily, but of duty for each and every one, a duty prescribed
by natural law and knowable with certainty by all.

Law was a pivotal category in Locke’s analysis. It pointed him to the idea of jurisdiction,
and, more precisely, to two corresponding jurisdictions, the ecclesiastical and
the civil. The different purposes
implied in these two jurisdictions, and the different ways in which they were
established, made churches and states free from one another’s
jurisdiction. Religious worship,
conducted in churches, is simply outside civil jurisdiction and not subject to
it: it is not tolerated by the state, for the state has no jurisdiction over
it, but rather free. Toleration finds
its place in the toleration, by all, of other people’s manner of worshipping
God—as they must—as they judge they must.
On the other hand the state, because it is entrusted with the ends implied
in civil jurisdiction, is required to coerce atheists and Roman Catholics. Atheists reject natural law and with it the
very notions of civil and ecclesiastical jurisdiction, while Roman Catholics
deny the integrity of civil jurisdiction, believing that the jurisdiction of
their own church extends over every other and over every state. Therefore the denial of toleration to both
groups was a necessary consequence of Locke’s jurisdictional thinking.
Toleration and intolerance went hand in hand and, as strange as it sounds to
the modern ear, there were duties to both.
Thus a new Locke comes into view.

Natural Law and Toleration in the Early
Enlightenment is published by Oxford University Press for the British
Academy, as volume 186 of the Proceedings
of the British Academy. Since 1905
this series has provided a unique record of British scholarship in the social
science and humanities. It seeks to
publish themed volumes that drive scholarship forward and are landmarks in
their field. Jon and I were especially
pleased that John Dunn agreed to contribute a ‘Postface’ which offers a
powerful meditation on the importance of understanding the detail and complexity
of the history of toleration in modern Europe for any adequate view of its
past, its present, and its future prospects.
His chapter is a fitting conclusion to the book, for that is the on-going
task to which it makes its own small contribution".